


Monopolizing the Avengers

by Frea_O



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Board Games, Boredom, Comraderie, Frostbite, Gen, Snowbound, Snowed In, Team Dynamics, Teamwork, cabin in the woods, monopoly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 14:43:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frea_O/pseuds/Frea_O
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody gets snowed in, Tony gets bored, Steve gets nostalgic, and Thor gets culture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monopolizing the Avengers

“So?” Natasha asked as Clint came back in, brushing snow off of his cap.

He looked somewhat grumpily at the group as he peeled out of the many layers—face-mask, ski cap, neck-warmer, scarf, boots, parka. Steve, he knew, was impervious to cold. Thor was the same because, duh, Norse god. Tony’s suit functioned fine in any weather, and Natasha was Russian. A snowstorm was like Tuesday morning for her, even in the summer. Bruce could Hulk out to keep warm. But Clint had drawn the short straw, so he’d gone to the radio tower a quarter mile up the road, the only place with reception. Because he was a _team player._

“That was headquarters. Storm’s too thick, we’re here for the night.”

“Dibs on the couch,” Tony said immediately.

Clint waited for the billionaire to make some crack about the state of their accommodations—a single-room cabin in the woods was hardly luxury—but instead the self-proclaimed genius just flopped onto the same piece of furniture to which he had just called dibs.

“What is ‘dibs’?” Thor asked Steve, who shrugged.

“So what do we do now?” Tony asked. “Is this where we break out the mugs of hot cocoa and get our kumbaya-yas out?”

“Sure,” Natasha said, face completely deadpan. She’d taken up a post at the window, no doubt the coldest part of the room, curled up on the windowsill and staring out into the blinding white of the snowstorm. It was the only sign that Clint needed that she was feeling caged. “You start singing. We’ll all join in.”

Clint smiled and moved to the wood stove, hoping to regain some feeling in his extremities. Tony and Bruce, of course, had already modified it so that it put out almost more than enough heat than the room needed. It certainly beat some of the safehouses that he and Natasha had crashed in over the years.

“I find a round of drinking and song desirable,” Thor said. “Come, Stark, lead us in your finest battle song.”

“I don’t do battle songs, but I bet Captain World War Two’s got some doozies. C’mon, Soldier, impress us with your patriotism.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “Sorry, Thor, can’t sing.”

Thor looked distinctly put out by that. He’d asked about Midgardian battle songs before, Clint remembered. Bruce had hesitantly suggested Motley Crue. Unfortunately, that had been the same week that Libyan terrorists had tried to hack JARVIS, and Natasha had moved out of the tower. Clint hadn’t blamed her; that much 80s rock playing at all hours when Natasha barely liked any music set after the 19th century had to have been hell. That was more his bit than hers, which was why he never minded when the elevator malfunctioned and JARVIS fell back on his old ways.

“There’s some board games here,” Bruce said, digging through the bookshelf. “That could help us pass the time.”

Natasha met Clint’s eyes across the room, one of her eyebrows quirking at that. Clint shrugged.  

“Not Twister,” Tony said. “Natasha will kick all of our asses at that. Having a dancer on the team is cheating.”

“You didn’t seem to mind my dance background so much when I used it to take out that guy about to hit you with the RPG,” Natasha said, but she finally abandoned the window sill to pad over to where Bruce was digging through the games. “Whatcha got, Doc?”

“Wait, you’re supporting this idea?” Tony asked her.

“Why not?” Steve asked. “Our ride won’t be here until morning, and we do need to pass the time somehow.”

“By playing board games?”

“If we are gaming by throwing boards, I fear that some of us might have an unfair advantage,” Thor said, a frown furrowing between his eyebrows as he looked at Bruce, Clint, and Natasha. “Unless it has to do with accuracy, perhaps, and then we are all unmatched by Barton.”

“We’ll call it introducing Thor to more culture,” Steve said, clapping their godly comrade on the shoulder. “We used to have the best game. I played it all the time as a kid—my friend’s uncle had a copy of it and he used to let us play after school.”

“What was it called?” Clint asked. He was beginning to sense the annoying prickles of feeling returning in his fingers.

“Oh, you won’t have heard of it. I doubt it’s still around, but it was called Monopoly.”

Tony began laughing. When Steve turned to give him a questioning look, the inventor just fell off of the couch, laughing even harder. Clint rubbed his face to hide his smile.

“Looks like you’re in luck, Steve,” Bruce said, and Natasha set a dusty Monopoly board box on the ground in front of Steve. “Guess that saves us from having to debate over which game to play.”

“Which is a good thing,” Natasha said. “Barton cheats at Twister.”

“Not my fault you’re ticklish,” Clint said, and wisely ducked.

When the Quinjet finally made it through the storm—three hours later than anticipated—they were expecting a room full of bored Avengers. Nothing could have prepared them to find Bruce grumbling as he forked over rent money to Clint for landing on Atlantic Avenue, Steve fastidiously counting money into the bank (he was the only one they all agreed was honest enough to serve as the banker), Tony sulking in the corner because nobody ever landed on Boardwalk, Natasha idly painting her toenails (she’d grown bored of Monopoly sometime around 2 a.m. and had promptly handed all of her properties and cash to Clint, ignoring Tony’s protests of “Hey! Cheating!”), and Thor, having also grown bored of Midgardian culture, sleeping on the couch, snoring like the God of Thunder that he truly was.

**Author's Note:**

> There’s a _Buffy_ reference in there. Happy hunting.


End file.
